A spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister has denied claims that Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to hand back control of the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians.

A report in Israel's Maariv newspaper had claimed that Netanyahu's envoy to the recent talks in Amman with the Palestinian Authority, Yitzhak Molcho, had intimated that Israel would not impose its own authority on the region as long as "tight security arrangements" are in place.

The Prime Minister's office described this as "a tendentious and distorted leak from the content of the talks". Discretion is essential, added the spokesman, and is something to which both sides are committed.

Palestinian sources told Maariv that Israel had demanded a long-term military presence in the Jordan Valley, something which was rejected by the PA negotiators.